Does anybody have plans for making catapults of any kind, or Arbalests? I'm thinking on making a scaled-down and powered-down version for the field.

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

i dont know how but i have a suggestion for the ammo it can take you know those big bouncy exercise balls? those could work quite well or smaller ones they are extremely light and wouldnt hurt to much upon impact

Lol. I'd have to cover them in foam. Those do hurt when thrown. Played no rules dodgeball once with 15 of them. I had bruises the size of a soup-can bottom all over me. They also burn like hell.

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

at home i have built small scale versions of trebuchets and an onager, the treb can throw a small stone about 60 ft. the onager still needs to be tweeked a little bit, if by ideas you maen plans,instructions then all you really have to do is look at a pic of what you want to build and seige machines are very simple to make, unless of course you want a ballista they're very complicated

Anything works, especially ballista. I'm thinking on using that for javelines.

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

One of my projects was to build an Atlatl that would be used to hurl Javelins... after some research (it didn't take long), I realized that there was no way to make them safe enough to use. Safety may end up being the spoiler of many of these ideas - as cool as they may be.

Some safety concerns can be addressed, while others may be too much to overcome, such as the increase in velocity from an Atlatl.

These things have been discussed before, and i believe the general vote was "NO". I've heard that large scale seige weapons were once tried out, but the only way to make them safe would be to have the entire area clear arround them.

Think of it this way: Giant wooden arm of a catapault flinging stuff (as it is meant to do) in conection with 20+ fighters running around beating each other with foam weapons and running around. Its asking for an accident to happen. It would be awesome if it were possible, but it'd be hard to do.

I thought about this before, the only way it would be safe (and historically acurate) is if each team had a "castle" or "base" or something to put their catapault/seige weapons in along with one or two people to man it. OR if each group had some sort of area for archers and seige weapons, like a field diveded into 5 parts, each edge with seige weapons, inside of that archers, then in the center an area for melee combat. The problem there being that you would need alot of people (and archers) to make it applicable, along with the overall fact that anywhere an event is going to be hosted not being thrilled with people bringing large seige weapons onto their fields.

_________________half elf rogue

Just tell your father you couldn't avenge his death because you were too busy getting stoned. He'll understand. |N|I|N|J|A|S|My Anti-Drug

Although a small siege weapon would assuage most proprietors hosting the masses of Belegarth nut jobs bashing each other, the safety concerns still apply. I have heard of people ringing the siege equipment with a line 10 foot in radius away from the equipment that caused instant death if it was entered.

It is a lot of work for a lightly effective weapon. I think, however, if a whole realm were beset with the overwhelming urge to build (make portable and small enough) and had the technical expertise to pull it off, then they should go for it. It would add to the realms sense of accomplishment.

I have considered a small catapult that would fire a bunch of ballistic balls that Nerf makes for a gun the sell. It would fire about ten of them, not very far, or very fast, but if you are distracted they could get you.

It would probably be an offstage thing, of I could pad it. It would just be something you sort of released. I have not thought about it in a while.

If javs were to be used on the ballista, the ballista would follow the same regulations as a bow. The javeline would also be padded more. As for catapults, one that came to a max of 5-foot tall basically throw giant rocks, probably three-foot diameter max, into the air and then let gravity do its work. But the swinging arm is a problem. And I've asked in my realm, and people have said it's legal, just take safety into huge concern. A ballista can be made easily. Pretty much a low-powered, giant crossbow would work. The catapult could be made of padded PVC so it can bend, but no one's going to get their head knocked off. Besides, it would prbly be on the side, say during faction battles a group can man the artillery and can't be attacked. Realism there, because two armies fighting eachother can be hit indiscriminately by allies, enemies, or a neutral party. That way, chance of getting injured is pretty much minimum, and it gives the factions something else to look out for. But what about special rules for artillery? Busted shield after one hit, and can go through armor sounds good. Anything else that should be added?

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

Nah. I think that would more carrier frigate. Get a bus with multiple doors and fill it as full as you can and have archers on the top. Stop at the event, and let the invasion begin!

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

Kodiak,
There have been lots of discussions about siege weapons, and the general opinion seems to be that they cannot be made safe enough for play. I agree with that assesment.

I built a ballista back in high school. I thought that greatest challenge for belegarth adaptation would be building a safe and usable projectile. What I failed to consider, was the great speed at which the torsion coils (where the ballista gets it's power) swing the wooden arms that launch the bolt. Imagine if someone's face got in the way. That's $10,000 in dental work just waiting to happen.

Other discussions have taken place about what the damage of a siege weapon would be. The notion of "black damage" was toyed with for a while, but never seemed to make it past an arguement involving simplicity.

Also, consider the types of battles that war engines were historically used in. Most, if not all of them, involve prolonged siege of a fortified position. There is no such thing in the belegarth world (except the Numenorian castle) making such weapons close to useless.

I think that building operational model siege engines can be a fun experience (especially if you want a medieval themed physics project), but they just aren't feasible in our form of combat.

_________________Murder Tundra Horde

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The ballista would follow similar restrictions as the bow. But you do have a point. Some friends of mine from practice an I are already planning out construcion. We'll make it, take it to practice, get feedback before use, do a test on a no-target range shot, get even more feedback, then tweak it. What's more, it's all made mainly from PVC that's been padded to the point where all you'll get if you get knocked by the arm is going to be no worse than a shot from Reaper or Slagg around here.

_________________Lo, there do I see my father...Lo, there do I see my mother and my sister and my brothers...Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning...Lo, they do call to me.They bid me take my place among themIn the halls of ValhallaWhere the brave may live forever.

ok I have great idea for a portable catapult get yourseles a bunch of "rocks" and use your arm. just kidding actualy i do have an Idea get two pieces of large rubber tubing and a bandana you would tie two corners of the bandana together then tie the other two together then get your rubber tubing thread one piece through the hole made by tying the bandana corners together tighten the bandana then tie the rubber tubing of leaving a loop of tubing repeat with other side. To use it you could either get three people to use it or build a frame
For the people to use it you would have two people one on each side grab the top of the rubber tube loop then a third person would put a "rock" in the bandana pouch and pull diagonally down then release causing the "rock" to fly.
If you want to build a frame you would use four pieces of wood to build a square on the ground then attach two pieces of wood vertically then two smaller pieces to hold up yourverticle ones would be attached to launch same thing.

_________________Kat Lady of KimberlyAiria Lady of Falcannon and ShannaraAiria <_>The Queens Official Dark Side A Proud Member of The Sisters of Anaxilea"Life is pain, courage, hope, wisdom and love." - A Blue Eyed Soulmate-

I have some pretty strong experience with LARP siege weapons. Amtgard gave them the benefit of killing on limb, shield, or weapon hits regardless of armor. However, while that sounds devastating and all, the fact that they're immobile and slow to use makes them pretty useless. They're bling. They're for show and fun.

Primary problem is in a battle your own guys tend to get in the way. The slow moving javelin fired from a ways off will be easy for the enemy to see and dodge, yet if your own people get in the way it'll be at their backs and they won't see it thus they won't dodge. If you have no one between you and the enemy then the enemy will simply rush in and "destroy" the siege weapon.

The Spruce Moose is pretty safe and easy to load, well it is if you discard the quirky 3-man pulling loader in the plans. That was just there to meet Amtgard's "3 people are needed to operate a siege weapon" rule. I sometimes ended up handing it over to 3 kids and told them to have at it, which was hilarious. It's not like they would have stood much of a chance on the field on their own anyways. So they had a blast firing wildly, killing our own guys, whatever. A good time was had by all.